A Georgia Trump indictment would complicate Jack Smith's case: legal expert
A former federal prosecutor warned Georgia's 2020 election case could make life much harder for special counsel Jack Smith.
During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Yasmin Vossoughian Reports” Sunday, Brandon Fox said a potential Fulton County prosecution against Trump would be viewed as political, and suggested that District Attorney Fani Willis could do more to get justice by turning over evidence to the special counsel’s office.
It is within her power for Willis to do both of these things.
Fox’s comments came in response to a question from the host over whether Fox thought the Fulton County indictment would happen early this week.
“All indications are that's going to be the case, and I just question why this is necessary, because it's going to complicate DOJ’s efforts greatly,” Fox said. “It's going to look like it's a political prosecution. DOJ is trying to stay above the fray, above politics but it's based on substantially similar conduct being prosecuted by Jack Smith's office.”
Trump has already claimed that all prosecutions against him are political.
Fox cited the DOJ’s “Petite Policy,” which provides guidelines that aim to protect criminal defendants from unnecessary harassment from multiple prosecutions, and which Fox said “addresses whether charges should be brought by different jurisdictions for substantially the same conduct. So, again, I question whether this is something that is good for the prosecutors in this case.”
Vossoughian said: “So, this is the first time I'm hearing this, and I think it's interesting. So, do you think that finding Willis if in fact this indictment comes to fruition on Tuesday, should drop this case, that she should not be pursuing it?”
“I don't think that she should be pursuing it against Donald Trump for the reasons I just described,” Fox said.
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“If she believes, and I assume she does see, as many people do, that he committed a crime, what she should be doing is providing that evidence to Jack Smith’s office and letting him go with this. But by doing what she's doing, if she's going to be prosecuting Donald Trump – and again, go ahead with others as long as it's not going to complicate the federal case – she's creating potential new witness statements that Donald Trump's attorneys can use in cross-examining those witnesses” and fueling “allegations that it's going to look like these are all political prosecutions, and there's piling on, and that's why the DOJ has policies in place to not make it look like you're piling on and look like you're doing justice instead.”
Michigan's attorney general is also investigating the fake electors piece of the 2020 election overthrow attempts. It's unknown if that will directly link Trump or only his campaign. Thus far, she has only indicted the 16 so-called "fake electors."
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